


Heat

by LD200



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Character Study, Gen, Hank Anderson & Connor Friendship, In Character, Language, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-05 16:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15867123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LD200/pseuds/LD200
Summary: [Takes place after alternate Public Enemy ending. Connor gets attacked by the Stratford broadcast deviant; Hank saves his life and helps him tend to his injuries back to the DPD station.]It was true; Connor hadn't felt pain before. But that was starting to change, and a knife in the hand was a pretty good inhibitor to denial.





	1. Pain

::Stratford Tower, broadcast area break room::

::November 8, 2038::

Before interrogating Carlos Ortiz's android, Connor had told Hank, Gavin, and Chris that androids couldn't feel pain. He realized now that he might have been wrong, or perhaps he had never been quite sure to begin with. Some deviants could feel pain. Or at least... a very close approximation.

Opening the broadcast android's chest cavity, Connor unceremoniously removed its thirium regulator. 

The android froze, rooted to the spot, and blinked erratically.

"Biocomponent 8451," Connor murmured. "It regulates the heartbeat. Without this module you will shut down in exactly sixty-three seconds. I could put it back, but… you just have to tell me the truth."

Several seconds passed and it became clear the android wasn't going to talk. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this wasn't the deviant. The deviant would have talked by now. But it was showing no signs of pain, no signs of panic...

Sighing, Connor put the biocomponent back in the android's chest. And then everything happened very fast, even for him. 

The android grasped his lapels and threw him into the kitchen counter. Before he could defend himself, the deviant tore out his thirium biocomponent, and stabbed a knife through his hand. And right then, Connor had no choice but to accept the real reason he knew that some androids could feel; accept what had steadily become his own reality.

That he, too, could feel fear.

That he could feel pain—

BIOCOMPONENT MISSING

VI5AL VYSTEM DAMAGED

00:01:44 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

First it was heat in his chest and hand, a report that something was wrong, and then that report manifested into something palpable, something physical, something he couldn't explain and

-00:01:19 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

The heat sharpened until it expanded his own system's capacity for sensation. His mind spread open to a new reality. Warmth was comfortable at first, and then it was too much. Packed. Scalding. Radiating with enough pressure that he could feel the pulse of his own thirium against the pain.

No… no, only humans had nerve endings. That was a fact. He didn't have nerve endings. Only nodes that relayed a message of his state of health and safety so that he knew how to keep himself ali—no, not alive. Operational.

But that was – that was the precise function of human pain. And if this was anything like human pain, he needed to do something about it. Fast.

-00:01:01 TIME REMAINING BEFORE SHUTDOWN

So he did. With his free hand, he grasped the handle of the knife pinning him to the counter and pulled. It came out all at once and he cried out, collapsing. The blade had been holding all his weight. Without his regulator, he was weak – there was nothing to send thirium to his other biocomponents. His vision lapsed in and out and the world was red and splotchy in between.

-00:N0:43 TQME REEAINING NETORE JZUTDPWN

"Hank… Hank! I… I need help…"

It was the most force he had ever put into his voice in his entire short life, yet it came out quiet and strained.

Please… please hear me…

-400+0X:13 ?

No, no, call him Lieutenant Anderson. Why had he called him Hank? The eccentric old man probably wouldn't even recognize his first name as something that would come from Connor. Taking a breath, he tried to call out—

"Lieutenant Anderson…"

It was hardly loud enough for the machine androids still in the room to hear, never mind Hank Anderson who was probably corridors away by now.

"Connor!"

Thank God, or rA9, or the "Jesus" that Hank was always…

"Hang on, son – hang on, hang on! We're gonna save you, okay? Hang on. Here, here…"

"Deviant…" He could hardly hear his own voice and wondered if Hank could.

The world blinked dark and then back again.

"There was a deviant…"

Connor tried to gesture to the biocomponent on the floor, tried to push the explanation out, but couldn't do either. His voice betrayed him, his eyelids closed, and everything else shut down.

"Connor! Oh fuck – your chest – what the fuck…"

He could still hear Hank's voice and he wanted nothing more than to respond to it – he wanted to respond, even more than he wanted his stupid mission.

"Connor… no…"

No…

He felt the human's hand first on his chest, then gently on his forehead. If Hank would just look around—

"Oh shit!" Hank had seen the biocomponent; he could tell. All of Hank's warmth left him at once – and then, a few seconds later, returned. "Connor, you stay awake, you hear me? That's a fucking order!"

Hank shoved the biocomponent back into Connor's chest cavity, then turned it to set it in place. Immediately, he could see again. His hearing came next - the sound of Hank's worried, ragged breaths - and then his strength. Despite that, he wasn't sure he could move. It was all he could do to lay there on the floor in Hank's arms. Shock. The two made eye contact for several seconds, both just present enough to wonder if it had really worked, if it was enough, and then—

"I'm okay," Connor realized aloud. "Thank you. You… saved me, Hank. Thank you."

Now, all at once, he fully understood the gratitude of the officer he had saved on the terrace. Hank gazed down at him, not quite smiling, but for Hank, it was something close.

"How the fuck did that happen, anyway?"

"I was interrogating the deviant," Connor said. "Our thirium regulators are like human hearts – we shut down without it. We're designed so that our chest cavities can open quickly and harmlessly in case of a malfunction, or in case quick replacement is needed, so I opened his, and took his biocomponent."

"Turned that right back around on you, didn't he? Cheeky prick."

"I wasn't trying to kill him," Connor said, even though Hank hadn't accused him of such – and even though it wouldn't necessary be a bad thing if he had been trying to kill the deviant. "I put it back. But he did want to kill me. I almost… I almost died."

Connor had died before. He uploaded his memory so that it could be replaced into a new, identical Connor. There were always details that got lost in the transfer. And there was one lone detail that never made it to the transfer to begin with:

The death itself.

He couldn't upload his memory after he was already dead. So even when he knew he had died, death remained as foreign to him as ever. He didn't know what it felt like, didn't know what it meant – but just now, had come so close.

"I was scared," he said, stopping in the broadcast room.

Glancing over at him, Hank slowed down. "It'd be strange if you weren't."

"And I felt it. I felt the knife…" He looked down at his hand. The unpleasant heat still lingered. Why? He was safe now. He had already run two self-checks to assess his state and he was fine now that the thirium pump was back in place. He wondered if human pain lingered too. "And you, Lieutenant Anderson."

"Ah, Jesus. Here we go."

"Humans are much warmer than I am. I don't know if I ever recognized that before. I know my system can register body heat, but I don't know that I've ever actually felt it."

Some of Hank's wariness dissipated. "Learned a lot today, did you, Connor?" The lieutenant looked over his shoulder at him. "Got news for ya – that's gonna be sore for a while. Come on. We can take care of it back at the station."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate-alternate ending: Hank walks in while Connor's still got the knife through his hand and exclaims, "Jesus Christ!" Connor says "Not quite" and fucking dies.
> 
> Ahem. See you next time, in which Hank tries to help Connor tend to his injury while they wait for station android to come back with blue blood, and Connor struggles with how to handle these new instabilities in his software. There's much in store for this story and for Connor... if you enjoyed this little intro, please let me know! (or if you didn't, I'm open to con-crit too!)


	2. Presence

“That deviant shouldn’t have gotten away,” Connor said as Hank led him into a vacant room and sat him down. They were accompanied by one of the station androids who set a medical kit on the table and quietly picked through its contents. “I should have handled that differently.”

“You handled the interrogation here at the station just fine. If you couldn’t get anything out of the one today, chances are the rest of us couldn’t either. You made an effort, and it wasn’t enough. Nothing you can do.”

“I’m going to get some blue blood,” the station android interjected. “His injuries aren’t system-threatening, and it will be more cost-efficient to repair him here than to have him go back to Cyberlife.”

Hank nodded in acknowledgement.

“I’m not designed to fail,” Connor continued once she had left. “Even if events don’t go as expected, I’m meant to be able to account for every possibility.”

“Christ, get over yourself. Humans designed you and humans screw up all the time. What makes you think they couldn’t have screwed up some part of your program, huh?”

He recognized the eyebrow ridge, the creases, the signs of exasperation. He probably had more markers of exasperation in his storage for Hank than any other facial expression. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable back at the tower.”

“Got no idea what you’re talking about.”

Connor raised his eyebrows.

“I mean, other than you almost fucking _dying_ , but that’s a given!”

“You became frustrated when I mentioned human warmth,” Connor said, at which point Hank threw his head back and sighed loudly. “I was objectively identifying the new sensations I’ve become aware of recently, but you thought I was about to get personal, didn’t you, Lieutenant?”

“I hate when you say that godforsaken word—”

“What is there to be embarrassed about, holding someone you think might be dying?” Connor continued. “It’s a very natural response. It’s okay.”

“ _This,_ apparently! Fuck’s sake, next time I’ll leave you there, okay?”

“Calm down. I’m not getting soft on you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I would merely like to point out that you frequently accuse me of being more than a machine, almost as if you _want_ me to have human qualities – but then you get upset with me when I show those qualities towards you, and you forbid yourself from exhibiting those very same qualities, or at least deny that you have them. What are you so afraid of?”

Hank glared at him. “None of your goddamn business, okay?”

He knew the answer – he had seen the photograph on Hank’s kitchen table – he just wanted to see if Hank was open enough yet to say it. Since the officer clearly wasn’t, Connor answered his own question. “You feel you’re at your capacity for pain. Emotional pain, I mean. And you feel that if you don’t care about someone to begin with, you can’t ‘lose’ them; you can’t open yourself to more of that pain. But… you can’t always choose whether you care, can you? You can only choose whether you let yourself show it.”

Resigned, Hank just stared down at the table.

Measuring the probability, and understanding that there was a high chance Hank would cringe away and a slightly-less-high probability that Hank would strike him in the face, Connor nonetheless reached out and touched the man’s arm. “For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t want to lose you as a partner either.”

No response – which, really, was the best response Connor could hope for.

“Thank you for being with me. I’m glad that I didn’t shut down. But if it had come to that, I would have appreciated not being alone.”

Hank exhaled audibly, a mix of a scoff and a laugh, and looked at him. “You’re a piece of fucking work, you know that?” He rose, the chair screeching against the floor. “Gonna find the other android. She should’ve been back with blue blood by now.”

“I didn’t lose that much—”

“You did, actually. Don’t go anywhere, you hear? I’ll be back in a minute.”

Hank didn’t understand that he could lose a lot more blood than a human could and still maintain function – albeit at a lower degree – without any threat to his ‘life.’ Still, he humored the man. Hank was trying to do right by him, and Connor had just unintentionally interrogated him about it, however well-meaning he had been. He hoped Hank understood. There were nuances to personal conversations that he didn’t quite grasp yet, but he was getting there.

In the meantime, the least he could do was stay put and do what the lieutenant asked of him, just this once.

Hank returned five minutes later with no medical android in tow, just a small bottle.

“Everything okay, Lieutenant?”

“No, actually, someone got hurt and our assistant here got a little side-tracked. Nothing fatal, but she’s programmed to help humans before helping other androids.”

“That makes sense on a biological level. Our systems can…”

Having none of the explanation, Hank sat down across from him and shoved the into his hands. “Got your blue blood or whatever you call it.”

“Thirium,” Connor said, watching Hank pick through the medical kit. “A human, treating an android? Our systems are very different.”

“You helped that one officer during the hostage situation you told me about, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, but that was an android helping a human.”

“Same difference. Maybe even less, if you’re as stable as you think you are. This thing heats up, right?” Hank lifted a cautery pen out of the kit. “Seal you back together, or whatever?”

“Yes. The internal components will correct themselves, with a little time. Nothing has been irreparably damaged.”

“Mm. And what about that?” Hank gestured to the blue blood he had handed Connor. “You know what to do with that?”

Connor nodded, taking off the lid.

“Ah. Now I get to watch you guzzle a whole bottle of the stuff, eh?”

“Would you like to try it?”

“No!” Hank shouted, then started to smile. “You cheeky bastard, you had me for a second there. Could never tell if you were a smartass or just stupid.”

“I… suppose I’m glad you’ve evaluated me to be the former,” Connor said, and started to drink the blue fluid.

“Cheers to that. Hey Connor, I just may take you up on that offer if you’d have a drink with me sometime. You said you’d be my drinking buddy but I’ve never seen you take a sip of alcohol.”

Finishing the last of the thirium, Connor smiled. “It wouldn’t affect me the way it affects you.”

“Sure about that? Your biocomponents mimic human life in an awful lot of ways, and you’ve been feeling more and more things recently that I can only classify as human.”

“Hank, I am not a deviant. And even if I were, alcohol—”

“I didn’t say anything about deviancy.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“Well, sounds like that’s _your_ guilty conscience doing some projecting, Connor. Whatever, I’m not gonna argue with a ‘machine.’ Let’s get you fixed. Meeting a buddy at Jimmy’s in an hour.”

“I’m fine. Our core biocomponent is meant to be accessed easily in case quick replacement is needed. It still causes temporary trauma to the surrounding area, but it’s designed to heal on its own.”

“Yeah? Why doesn’t your hand do that, then?”

“It’s… similar, I suppose, to how a human body prioritizes its internal organs over the extremities, directing blood away from the hands and feet and into the critical areas of the body. My hand would heal itself, but it would take days, during which the inner components would be exposed. Self-healing takes too much processing power, even for an advanced model, to have it spread throughout the whole body.”

“Okay, well, in that case, no, you’re not ‘fine.’ Let’s get that hand taken care of. It gets worse or you can’t operate as well, I’m the one who’s gonna have to either pay for the damage or fill out the paperwork.”

Connor looked at his hand, looked at the cautery pen, looked at Hank. He wasn’t sure why he was hesitant.

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Okay.” He extended his arm, putting his hand on Hank’s side of the table. “I just wouldn’t have expected you to have a very… precise hand. You don’t seem the type suited to any kind of medical care, if I’m honest.”

“Ever occur to you that I might’ve done some homework on _you,_ too, Connor? I gotta cover my own ass, here. Anyway, turns out, humans and androids aren’t so different. They are _bio_ components, not just components. Besides, you drink the way I do and live alone, you have to be able to take care of yourself. Maybe I don’t have a fancy schmancy cautery pen, but I do the job. And I am a lieutenant – you think I don’t have a steady hand when I need one?”

“I wasn’t trying to offend you, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not _offended_ , I’m just saying…” Hank swished his free hand dismissively. “Fuck it. You ready?”

Anxiety flared up again. Something snapped into place in his mind.

“Wait!” Connor yanked his injured hand from Hank’s grip and shot up out of his chair.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Hank asked urgently, standing up too.

“This is – this is going to hurt, isn’t it?”

“Well _yeah_ , but it’ll help you. Jesus, Connor, I thought something was actually wrong. You freaked me out for a second there.”

“How much – how much will it hurt?”

“Fuck if I know, but… considering your limited experience with physical pain, probably quite a bit.”

“Why?” He couldn’t see his LED but he knew it was red. “If this is going to help me, then why will it hurt so badly?”

“Ah, fuck… I don’t know how to explain this, Connor. Just… let’s both sit back down, okay? I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”

Hank sat down first, hands visible on the table, and then Connor followed, closing his eyes for a moment to gather himself. “Sorry, Lieutenant.”

“This probably won’t make much sense to you,” Hank said, “but our bodies take pain at face value. If it’s posing any kinda threat, at all, it’s gonna hurt. Even if it’s also helping you, like what I want to do. I know that must be difficult to process, but if you run your diagnostic _while_ I’m cauterizing your hand, you’ll see that it’s okay. You don’t honestly think I would harm you, do you, Connor?”

“You leveled your gun at me by the Ambassador Bridge!”

“Christ, I wasn’t actually going to _shoot_ you! I just wanted to know that you actually gave a shit.”

“Even as an android, it’s hard to convince myself one has reasonable motives when they have a gun to my head.”

Hank sighed. “I’m sorry, Connor. Okay? I was angry and drunk and I… I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. I was never going to harm you, and I won’t harm you now.”

They gave each other a hard time constantly. But no – no, he didn’t think Hank would harm him. Not in any meaningful or long-lasting way, and not intentionally.

“Connor?”

“Okay,” he said determinedly. “Let’s try.”

They got as far as the cautery pen touching his wounded hand, and then Connor recoiled once again.

“Holy shit,” Hank said. “You really _can_ feel it, can’t you?”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Connor blurted. “I can’t stop myself from pulling away.”

“Yes, you can. That’s part of being human – you have a choice!”

“But I’m _not_ human, Hank, however much you want to think I am! Now that my program has recognized pain, it won’t let me stay in its path. Hank, you don’t understand. I _can’t._ ”

“If you can override your fucking program enough to feel all these emotions and sensations in the first place, then you can override it enough to cope now. Come on, take it like a man!”

“Is that what you believe I am?” Connor asked. “A man?”

“Right here and now, yeah, I do,” Hank said. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re more than some fucking machine.”

“Even if…” Connor forced himself to meet Hank’s eyes. “Even if you’re somehow right about me, I’m not far along enough to do what you’re asking me to do.”

“All I’m asking you to do is to be still – something you would have been able to do just fine a few days ago when you couldn’t feel pain. If you can manage that for ten or fifteen seconds, that’s all we’ll need for each side. Like I said, run your little program and you’ll see that you are not actually being hurt.”

“I’ll try, Lieutenant, but I can’t make any promises.”

Hank took his injured hand and turned it palm-up. Connor started running the diagnostic just as Hank had told him to do. And he watched as the pen came closer to the wound, its heat tickling his flesh.

The diagnostic reported no harm, no problems, no danger, even as the burn made him want to flinch away. He locked on to the diagnostic report – the lack of harm – and on the surprising gentleness of Hank’s movements. His hand jerked half a centimeter back towards his body, but then he locked down on that, too, keeping it exactly where it was.

 _SOFTWARE INSTABILITY_ ^

Hank had paused when he flinched back, but continued now. The order – _be still_ – had been executed, and now Connor just had to maintain it. It burned. It felt like damage, like harm, like wrong – but Hank had promised him it wasn’t that kind of pain. He had to let Hank rewrite his program’s interpretation of pain, or at least _this_ kind of pain. He had to – he had to _trust_ Hank.

“Don’t pause,” Connor heard himself say. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“See, what'd I tell ya?"

Connor watched as the peach color of his flesh melded back together. He fought to dwell within the diagnostic – within the knowledge that he was okay – but there was something else pulling at him, too. A twisted, foreign desire to experience this situation as a human would. A desire to be present in the unique challenges that only a human could face. The fear and thrill of not measuring predictability; of not _knowing._

...No. He shouldn't want that. Shut it down.

Finishing up on the inner wound, Hank set down the cautery pen. Overwhelmed with sensations both physical and emotional, Connor didn’t move, leaving his hand exactly where it was, settled in Hank’s hand palm-up. After a moment, he eased it away, back towards himself.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Yes.”

“…I feel like that’s what you’re supposed to say,” Hank said accusatorily. “I’m asking you a real question, Connor, and I want a real answer.”

Connor raised his injured hand, looking at it, then met the lieutenant’s eyes. “I’m… unnerved,” he said, “but I wasn’t lying to you. I _am_ okay, somewhere inside of the… anxiety.”

To his surprise, Hank smiled – even if it was a smug, knowing kind of smile. “This sense of vulnerability you feel right now? That’s what it means to be alive.”

“I am not alive,” Connor murmured with sudden coldness. “And I don’t want to feel this. I want to turn it back off.”

“Yeah, I turn off that part of my ‘programming’ every day. Know where that button is for me? The bottom of a bottle. And it doesn’t solve many problems.”

“Well I’m not _you,_ Hank. You shouldn’t drink. You should work through your feelings. You’re _human._ But _I_ don’t need to ‘feel’ things, in my physical structure or in my cognitive programming. It will hold me back from the mission.”

“Welp, I’m sure if you tried hard enough, you could revert back to your original settings and not experience any of this at all.”

That was exactly what he was arguing he wanted until _Hank_ said it, then he realized he didn’t want that. The way Hank worded it, it was almost as if he would be missing out on something if he reset his programming. The denial fell away. He wasn’t even sure he _could_ reset his programming now, at least not all at once. His software was too unstable.

“I’ll work on it,” he said, almost to himself. “I’ll find a balance. Perhaps… perhaps letting myself explore these new instabilities can help me understand how the deviants are feeling. Maybe it _can_ be useful to the mission.”

Hank shrugged, but didn’t look displeased. “We all say what we gotta say to ourselves to justify our decisions and desires. And you know what, Connor? Sometimes, that’s okay.”

“It’s true, though. I am not a deviant, but if I can experience a few instabilities that they experience without being one of them, maybe I can piece together what exactly causes it. Maybe I’m _meant_ to have a capacity for some of these things, so that I can understand. Hank, I’m CyberLife’s most advanced model. So if I can experience these things, it has to be that it’s a tool I’m meant to use to stop them.”

“Okay sure, but you know you still have a wound on the other side of your hand, right?”

Connor looked at said hand, which was raised slightly in paused body language. It was long done bleeding, but the synthetic skin was still open and his parts were still exposed to the air. He set it palm-down on the table in front of Hank.

“Okay. Just gonna hold your wrist, right, hold you steady. You good? Got your diagnostic thing going?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” It was the answer only to Hank’s first question, not to the second question – and briefly, he thought Hank had caught his lie, because the man stopped and looked up at him. “What is it?”

Hank regarded him curiously. “Was about to tell you to take a breath, but I don’t know if you breathe.”

“I don’t, so I’m afraid I’m unable to fully grasp the sentiment, but…” Connor gestured towards the cautery pen Hank had in his other hand. “Please.”

Hank tightened his grasp – not painful, just firm – and Connor wondered if Hank realized how easily he could pull away, just as he had done before. He let the weight of his arm and hand go limp, relaxed on the table. Hank took this for the go-ahead it was and began to efficiently seal the wound. It took only a few seconds, but a few seconds was a long time with something the temperature of hot charcoal. Connor closed his eyes.

 _SOFTWARE INSTABILITY_ ^

“Okay. That looks pretty good to me. Everything feel right in there?”

Opening his eyes again, Connor wiggled his fingers and nodded.

“Hey, your LED stayed blue this time.”

“Did it?”

“Yeah. What’s up with that? Go back to your original program after all?”

“No!” He actually felt a little stung that Hank thought that. “No, Lieutenant. I think I actually did the opposite. I felt it, I just wasn’t as worried.”

Hank didn’t say anything, regarding Connor skeptically.

“I didn’t run a diagnostic this time,” Connor confessed. “I simply chose to include what you were doing as an acceptable part of my program, without the need to analyze the risks with a diagnostic.”

“You know, there’s a word for that.” Hank had that smug half-smile again. “And despite what I thought before, you’re not too stupid to know it.”

Connor rose from his chair and made to leave the room, hand on the doorknob. “Thank you for your help, Lieutenant. You should go too. I wouldn’t want you to be late to Jimmy’s.”

“Whoa, hey, hey!” Hank got up and slammed the door shut again, keeping Connor from leaving. “And you act like _I’m_ stubborn! You made me talk about being ‘uncomfortable’ at the Stratford Tower. You don’t get to just walk away now that the shoe’s on the other foot, asshole.”

“I am not walking away from anything. I just thought our business here was concluded.”

“Oh, bullshit. You think you get a separate set of rules ‘cause you’re a machine?”

If Hank thought he was avoiding something, maybe he was. Connor ran the last few minutes back through his cognitive processors and understood. When Hank said there was a word for what Connor described when he decided not to run his diagnostic, it wasn’t just a statement of fact; it was a sincere attempt to engage with him. Connor merely hadn’t recognized it as such because he was used to Hank being emotionally constipated.

Taking his hand off the doorknob, Connor turned to face Hank fully. “Trust,” he said simply. “I trusted you.”

Meeting his eyes, the lieutenant softened considerably, or at least as much as he ever softened. “Yeah,” he replied, looking marginally more comfortable with this than Connor would have predicted. “Yeah, you did. You know, not to bust your balls, Connor, but trust is a pretty human thing to feel. And to _be_ trusted – something kinda rewarding about that. Haven’t felt it in a while.”

Connor canted his head slightly to one side. He hadn’t realized that Hank could get something out of this too, and he found himself glad for it.

“You did good,” Hank said, giving him a couple solid slaps on the back and leaving the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plenty more Connor and Hank moments to come! Let me know what you think so far. :)


	3. Resilience

When Connor strode into the police station the next day, Hank rose with a little less reluctance than usual and met him in the corridor. "How's that hand?"

"Better," Connor said honestly, "but Cyberlife will be sending a medical android to do some more precise work on it after our shift today. You did no harm, Hank – in fact, it was my error. I thought everything was fine, but one of the internal components overheated due to the temporary loss of thirium."

Hank shrugged. "I tried."

Connor shrugged too. "Someone told me recently, 'You made an effort, and it wasn't enough. Nothing you can do.'"

"I'd like to talk to that loser, kick his ass."

Connor was about to state just who precisely that loser was, then caught Hank's eye and realized the man was being self-deprecative. He was getting better at picking up on those kinds of cues. "I could help you do that, Lieutenant. If you'd like."

"Real fuckin' cute, Connor. Hey, uh… why don't you meet me at Jimmy's later? Could use a drinking buddy right now, if you were serious about that whatever-you-want-me-to-be bullshit."

"Shall I bring some thirium, as well?" Connor asked.

Hank looked at him with no trace of levity and said succinctly, "Fuck you."

Connor took that as a yes.

…

"Was 'fuck you' not clear enough?"

Connor managed to sustain a straight face while showing Hank the vial of thirium. "You said that you would take me up on the thirium offer if I would try one of your alcoholic beverages."

"Yeah, I don't think you quite understand the subtleties of humor, kiddo." Yeah, he liked Hank to think that. "Doesn't that stuff make you shit green?"

"I don't shit anything."

Hank glanced at him sidelong. "Wait, do you even…"

"Two of whatever Hank usually orders, thanks," Connor said to the bartender, who didn't look particularly pleased about an RK800 being in a no-android bar.

"He's with me," Hank said tiredly.

"You must be a regular here, must give them a lot of business," Connor deduced. "Otherwise I don't suspect they would be willing to look past my presence."

"They know I'm stuck with you right now anyway, so I think it's more out of sympathy than anything."

"Technically, right now, you're not stuck with me. You invited me here."

Hank shushed him forcefully. "Don't be a fucking idiot, okay?'

"I was speaking quietly," Connor said in his defense. "I can tell when my voice is in someone's earshot. My software—"

"Connor," was all Hank said.

Connor shut up and adjusted his tie.

Their drinks were presented to them, the bartender not quite glaring at Connor, but certainly not smiling, either. Connor tipped him extra, smiling knowingly. The bartender's visage softened albeit reluctantly. "You shouldn't be here. It makes people uncomfortable."

"And you have to be here, whether or not I'm here." Connor gestured to the extra two dollars. "Don't question a good thing."

"Whatever. Just don't cause no trouble."

"Of course."

He caught Hank eyeing him, looked down at the drinks, and back up at Hank. "You wanted me to have a drink with you," he said, picking up the short glass.

"Wait, you're not doing it right." In a moment of rare contentedness, Hank lifted his glass and clinked it with Connor's. "Cheers to… whatever the fuck this is."

"Cheers." Connor took a quick gulp and cringed. "Ahh! It… it burns! Bartender – water!"

Bursting out laughing, Hank slapped him hard on the back. "I knew it! Shit, I just had to see that!"

Connor glowered at the lieutenant, eyes watering from the sharp burn of the alcohol in his throat. "You wanted to see me do something that would hurt me?"

"Christ, Connor, it's not hurting you, it's just something you gotta get used to!"

He felt angry a moment longer, but understood through the creases in Hank's face that he had truly meant no harm, he was just having a little fun. Still, Connor pulled from his reserves a little special something that he had learned from Hank, something very suitable to their current situation:

"Fuck you."

"Oh my God, you actually said it!" Hank downed the rest of his drink. "I shoulda held off on the cheers until now, because that—"

There was a loud crash towards the back of the bar. Connor and Hank turned at once and saw someone get shoved hard into an occupied table. Wood screeched and glass shattered.

Running the events backward through his situational awareness program, Connor retroactively processed what happened. Two men who had been arguing in hushed whispers suddenly came to blows, one backhanding the other across the face and the other using the momentum of the strike to turn around, grab a pool cue, and proceed to try and stab his newfound opponent with it. He failed and got shoved into the table in short order.

"One made a vulgar insinuation about the other's sexual partner," Connor said. "Are most humans so petty?"

"At 11:00 at night on a Monday at Jimmy's? They sure fucking are."

Heads started to turn as the confrontation got louder and more violent. There was a clear loser and winner now – but the winner wasn't stopping.

"Come on, Connor. I see enough people injured or killed on the job and I don't need this shit here too."

Connor stayed rooted to the spot, watching the fight that wasn't really a fight anymore.

"Connor, come on. We're getting outta here."

"That man on the floor right now is going to die if we let this keep happening."

"Connor, I… holy shit, are you serious?"

"His aggressor has a knife, and his body language suggests he'll use it – soon."

Hank tensed, and Connor read the lieutenant's own body language in a split-second before reaching out and grasping Hank's arm. "Don't pull your gun. You're not sober enough to be waving around a firearm in a bar."

"I give the instructions, here, not you."

"Lieutenant, please, just let me handle this."

Sighing, Hank gestured with his head for Connor to move in, and Connor did.

"Sir, you need to step away. This isn't worth it."

The attacker turned to Connor with surprising viciousness, almost as offended that Connor would interrupt their fight as he was by the initial insult from the poor bastard now lying half-conscious on the floor.

"What, you want some?"

"I'm not trying to be combative," Connor said. "I'm just saying, you won your fight. This isn't worth it. Come with me, I'll buy you a drink. What do you like? Manhattan? Whisky sour? An appletini, maybe?"

"Fuck you!" The guy backhanded Connor across the face before he could react. "The fuck do you think you are, you little bitch?"

Reeling, Connor caught himself against a table. Stunned nothingness was followed by a burst of [pain?] that vibrated his synthetic skull. He was fine – everything was fine – and yet, for several debilitating seconds, his strength was swallowed up by the demanding sensations, the sting in his cheek, the ache ricocheting within his existence.

A quick analysis of the social relations program told him that maybe appletini hadn't been a wise suggestion. Connor wasn't sure why precisely – after all, it was just a drink—

Meanwhile, the violent bargoer had latched onto him as a new target and was lunging towards him. The analysis could take a rain check for now.

There was no time to waste. He hauled the aggressor back by his shoulders and threw him into the closest wall. In the same motion, he snapped the knife out the man's hands. At one edge of his vision, he saw Hank move in behind him to help the injured party. All it took was that split-second of distraction for the aggressor to punch him hard in the stomach. Connor doubled over and had to fight his own system to keep from collapsing.

"You asked for it just by setting foot in here, you pussy ass bitch!"

Hank turned his attention away from the injured brawler long enough to shout, "If you damage him, the DPD is gonna have to charge you!"

The lieutenant should have known from his own abundance of drunken nights that a statement like that wasn't going to knock any sense into someone hammered out of their mind. As it was, the brawler received it as a threat and took out his anger on Connor, slamming a heel down hard on his instep.

Connor's mind blanked out again, filled only with sensation. This time, he forced himself to override it – not to stop feeling it, he wasn't sure he could even do that now, but just to select something else as a priority – and struck the man hard across the face.

The man recoiled and stumbled to one side. Connor realized almost too late that it was a feign – he was trying to reach the knife again. So Connor pulled back and punched him again, harder, closed-fist, in the stomach. Then twice, then three times.

Collapsing for real this time, the brawler grabbed Connor by the lapels and took him down too. Caught by surprise, Connor found himself under the man being hit repeatedly. Points of [pain?] vibrated and rippled outward from the points of impact – nose, jaw, throat – spreading into each other, making each one worse than it would have—

CONFLICTING ORDERS

SELECTING PRIORITY

[program: protect system from further pain/damage]

[self: accomplish short-term mission]

His aggressor was closer to the knife. Connor had no feasible way to reach it. If he backed down, this guy could resume the assault on his initial target – or on Hank, who was, to be fair, not wasted, but definitely not sober enough to handle this situation efficiently. If he kept pulling aggression towards himself, Hank could protect himself and his current charge long enough to get away from the situation.

ACCOMPLISH SHORT-TERM MISSION

"Bit off more than you could chew, did you?" The man paused, sneering down at Connor. "Shouldn't have played the hero, buddy. You weren't welcome here to begin with! If your AI system is capable of learning, maybe this'll teach you to mind your goddamn business next time!"

"A lot of words," Connor murmured.

"What did you say? You think my bark don't match my bite, is that it? Didn't I just show you otherwise?"

"My name is Connor," Connor said quietly, the backs of his shoulders still pressed to the floor. "What's your name?"

Disarmed, even if momentarily, the man replied: "Keith. What the fuck do you care?"

Connor stared up at him. "Are we talking, Keith, or are we fighting?" he asked with a calm he wasn't sure was there. "Hit me."

This elicited the desired thrill of rage from the man – Keith – who slammed both hands down in a hammer motion toward Connor's head.

Connor caught one of Keith's hands and twisted,

ENDURE

turning his head to let the side of his face absorb the impact of the other. By the time it struck, he had twisted Keith's arm with all the force of an android prototype's joints and components, turning the man like a doorknob, flipping him off of himself and onto the floor beside him.

They both turned towards each other, trying to gain the advantage, and made their way to their feet when they saw the other was doing the same. They were a veritable storm of blows after that. Keith's drunkenness shielded him from the pain of the fight; this combined with Connor having to cope with his still-new instabilities left them on surprisingly even footing. The biggest difference between them was Keith's state of moderate inebriation, which, for all its analgesic effects, left him clumsy.

Connor shoved him hard into a table and he lost his footing, rolling over it and landing on the opposite side, knocking his head on the corner of a chair on the way. Keith didn't get back up after that.

The panic of the fight fell away like drapes, revealing the panorama of stunned bargoers watching. Sure, it wasn't like most of them hadn't seen a fight before – but this, this hadn't just been a bar fight. This had been a real fight.

Expecting to be berated and thrown out any second, Connor turned to the bartender. "He was going to—"

"I know," the bartender interrupted. "The dude's been nothing but trouble. He had it coming. That said, I think you should catch up with your police lieutenant and let my customers enjoy the rest of their night in peace."

Connor nodded and left the bar.

He found Hank outside less than half a block away, using the cool rain to sober up the injured brawler – and perhaps himself, as well.

"You gonna be okay, kid?" the Lieutenant asked.

"I was being an asshole. You guys shouldn't've even stepped in for me."

"The guy had a knife and got real close to using it," Hank said. "No amount of bad-mouthing deserves death, trust me. If it did, I'd be dead ten times over."

"Well… I'm gonna catch the next bus."

Hank nodded and pushed the guy along gently. Once he was out of sight, the lieutenant turned to Connor. Either the situation had sobered him up or he hadn't been as drunk as Connor thought, because his eyes were lucid. "I caught most of your fight, you know," he said. "A little off your game, Connor."

"You could say that," Connor agreed. "Hank, I could… I could feel it, when I struck him. Not really feel it the same way I feel it, but still, it just didn't seem right. Now that I know what it feels like to… to hurt, it's easier to tell when I'm inflicting that on someone else. It feels… wrong. Low."

"Huh." Hank stared off into the rain. "Empathy. Now that's a step deeper, innit, Connor?"

"Is that the" – [pain?] – "pain I've been causing whenever I fight someone, interrogate someone…?"

"Well yeah, Connor, but you gotta remember this is way newer to you than it is to any of us humans. We're a little more used to it than you are." Hank seemed to realize something then, eyes widening a little. "You didn't just empathize with him, did you? I mean, earlier, when I helped cauterize your hand and you felt it, that wasn't just temporary. The fight – you felt that too, didn't you?"

Feeling rather accused, Connor focused a little too hard on making sure his lapels and tie were straight.

"No, no… Jesus, Connor, I'm not, like, suspicious or anything. I'm just asking you a question."

"A question to which you already know the answer, Lieutenant."

Hank did that scoff-laugh thing that Connor couldn't always distinguish. "You're a fuckin' badass, you know that?"

"You are less inebriated than you were before, but not sober enough to be offering me compliments without potentially regretting it the next day."

"Nah, no, this isn't just the alcohol talking. I really mean that. At least… I think I do."

Connor grinned. "Whatever you say, Lieutenant."

"Hey – you're not actually hurt hurt, are ya?" Hank held his gaze until Connor shook his head. "Okay. Good. But why – why do all that?"

"Perhaps your sense of duty has left an impression on me, Lieutenant. I just decided I didn't want a relatively innocent man to get stabbed." Connor shrugged and smiled. "And I always accomplish my mission."


	4. I Can See You

"Right, come on, then. Christ, you stink… but if you stink, so do I."

"Sorry, Lieutenant."

"Nah, ain't your fault. You were in a barfight." Hank actually grinned. "Spic-and-span android gentleman Connor was in a fucking barfight."

"It's not that simple," Connor said. "I was defending…"

"Shut up and let me have my fun, okay?" Hank shoved Connor through the doorframe and into his house. "Now – I'm gonna have a drink, and you're gonna have a shower."

"Lieutenant, I…"

"What, you're plastic and not human? So's my Tupperware, but I got news for ya: when that gets dirty, it still gets washed with good old soap and water. 'Sides, your synthetic skin probably absorbs more than plain plastic. You smell like booze and blood and that guy's sweat." Hank gestured towards the bathroom. "Towels are under the sink. Go clean yourself up, Connor. Not asking again."

"All right, Lieutenant."

Once he entered the bathroom, Connor paused, closing the door up to the edge of the frame and looking at himself in the mirror above the sink. Without really thinking about it, he reached up, touched his temple, and deactivated his skin. His dark brown hair receded as if it was growing in reverse, and the skin melded with the plastic like it was being stirred in. Then, seconds later, all he saw was a sphere of cold white surrounding a pair of coppery brown eyes.

Was he making all this up? Worse – was CyberLife making all this up in his own head? There was surely no way the creature in the mirror could feel pain. Any kind of pain.

"Heya Connor, still decent in there?"

"What? Yeah." Connor adjusted his tie.

"I'm outta paper towel out here and I just figured I'll grab a roll of…"

Connor thoughtlessly opened the door partway and handed Hank a roll of toilet paper with the other hand.

"Fuck!" Hank staggered back, smacking the toilet paper out of Connor's hand as if it was a weapon. "Fuck!"

"Hank, what… what is it?" Connor bent down to pick up the roll. When he stood straight again, Hank had taken several further steps away and was staring at him. The outrage on his face was a thin veil for the very real fear behind it.

"You… you're…" And then, behind the fear that was behind the outrage, was something else: betrayal. Hank looked gutted as he took in Connor's face – and Connor felt a foreign sensation within his own system that he had to believe matched Hank's unpleasant reaction.

Suddenly Connor felt timid. "I… I didn't mean to startle you, Lieutenant," he almost whispered, taking a few steps closer. "You saw Markus on the TV at the Stratford Tower. So I guess it didn't occur to me that it would unsettle you to see… to see my face like this."

"Markus doesn't matter to me," Hank spat. "But you… I thought… I mean, I didn't think…"

"It's just an exterior," Connor said, sounding more desperate than he wanted to. "If I would have known it would lower your opinion of me, I would never have let you see."

_If I would have known it would make you see me as… less human…_

Hank had asked him once if he was aware of the status of his own LED. Connor had responded that he could choose to be, much the way humans could become cognizant of their own expressions if they had reason to think about it, but otherwise tended to not be aware of what was displayed on their face.

Connor became very aware of his own face now, and his own LED light, flickering yellow, and then the circle closing steadily to red – and staying there. It didn't make sense. Everything was fine. His LED didn't need to be red. Everything was fine. Everything was—

Abruptly, Connor turned, went back into the bathroom, and shut the door a little harder than he needed to.

"Connor—"

As he turned on the shower on as quickly as possible, Hank's voice became little more than a half-hearted mumble buried beneath the sound of the water. Hank didn't say much – drunkenness tended to lend itself to a low attention span – so Connor locked the door. Not wanting to get his suit wet, he undressed. And again, he found himself before the mirror. This time, he didn't just see himself through the lens of his own self-doubt, but through Hank's doubt as well, and it…

It [hurt].

Was this pain, too?

He had startled Hank, just by removing his synthetic skin. As far as they had come the last few days – and he might have just ruined it.

He was an imposter.

A simulation of life that he had allowed Hank to believe was real.

And now, the image of what he really was – a machine – had just shattered the illusion for both of them.

It had been wrong to let Hank think he was more than what he was. It had been wrong to let himself think he was more than what he was.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY v

And now he had hurt Hank – a human who actually could feel the pain of that hurt and know that that pain was real.

"Sorry Hank," Connor said so quietly that there was no way Hank could hear him, but it felt good to say it anyway. "I made a mistake."

Folding his suit, Connor turned on the bathroom fan and stepped into the shower, which had gotten warm while he analyzed himself in the mirror. The same dust and dirt that showed on the plastic showed on his skin as he reactivated it. The water at his feet grayed with the grime of the day. And what an adventure of a day it had been – only to have it end like this.

Well, if Hank didn't care about the rift in their partnership that had just occurred, there was no way Connor should care. He was an android. Hank was a human. If anyone had a right to be broken up about this, it was Hank, not him. And Hank… was not.

Missing someone meant they were gone, didn't it? So why did he suddenly miss Hank when Hank was only a couple rooms away?

Connor closed his eyes and focused on the hot water. It made his skin tingle wonderfully. That had to be fake, too. It didn't feel fake. But then again, he wouldn't know. He didn't feel things the exact same way humans did. Maybe if he could – just once – he would see why all this was nothing more than an internal simulation.

Still, he let the hot water make him relaxed, because soon, he would start to revert back to his original programming. Soon he would get rid of these instabilities. They weren't worth it.

"Connor," came Hank's voice a few minutes later. Muffled by the sound of the water and the bathroom fan, Connor couldn't analyze what might have been in Hank's tone right then, and he was glad for it. He didn't want to know.

"Go back to your bottle, Lieutenant," Connor replied. "That is your preferred company this time of night, isn't it?"

For once, Hank was speechless. No argument, no counter-quip, no rage.

Picturing Hank going and taking yet another swig of whiskey, Connor understood – on some remotely related level – why a person would go to something physical to numb something emotional. Hedonism was a good antidote for stress. A quick, shallow escape. He himself was doing the same thing, to a milder degree – getting lost in the gentle needles of hot water, overriding the things he didn't want to feel with the things he did.

Soon enough, he would go back to not feeling any of it at all.

To think… to think it had been less than twenty-four hours since he was forced to acknowledge he could feel things.

Connor's left hand showed no lingering signs of trauma from the Stratford Tower incident. Whatever blue blood might have still been staining his hand washed away in the shower. No scratch, no scar, no hint of evidence remained that it had even happened. No reminder that Hank had helped him heal in the DPD Central Station. No bruises from the barfight; they had faded away by the time they made it back to Hank's house.

Their adventure had left few signatures.

Regret sprung up in his stomach and chest. He forced it back down, away, deeper than the tertiary systems whose processes he didn't have to think about. There was nothing to regret. There was no point having an emotional attachment to a day that, in the end, had meant nothing.

All of that, and Hank still saw a machine. That could only mean one thing: a machine was all he really was.

His suit would need to be washed, so instead of putting it back on, Connor took some of Hank's too-big clothes from his bedroom and used them as pajamas. On his way out, he saw a drawer he had ignored before. Snooping around Hank's room so far hadn't seemed to catch the old man's attention, so he opened it in case there was a more suitable set of clothes for him to borrow. Instead, he found some photos and Hank's revolver. Shit. He had meant to address that. Hank killing himself would be… would not get them any closer to finishing the investigation.

Getting an idea, Connor went back across the hall and into the bathroom, opening the mirror cabinet and taking a blank note. He scanned and then copied Hank's handwriting from one of the numerous sticky notes on the mirror (this one in particular said 'SHAVE or NOT?' and even his bleak state of mind Connor couldn't help one corner of his mouth tilting up in amusement), then wrote a message in Hank's hand on the clean one.

GET BLANKS, dumbass! Less chance of dying.

Of course, a blank could still kill at close range, but it wasn't a guarantee the way a bullet was. If Hank wanted to die that badly, he wouldn't leave five chambers empty. This was just another way to increase his chance of survival while still taking the gamble.

At this point, Connor didn't stop to ask himself why he cared. Even as a machine, he was meant to preserve human life when he could. With any luck, Hank would see the note and not realize anyone other than his own drunken hand had written it. He stuck it on the barrel of the revolver and threw the pen in the drawer too.

Then, making as little noise as he could, Connor went and deposited himself on a chair in Hank's kitchen. He spun a quarter on the table, seeing how many seconds (and milliseconds) it would last before it was still. Every so often he had to adjust the sleeves on the clothes he had borrowed from Hank's bedroom. They were a little too big for him.

After a while – or maybe only a few minutes, but it sure felt like a while – Hank glanced at him sidelong from the living room. "What're you doing?"

Connor didn't look at him. "I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

He wasn't calibrating his reflexes. He wasn't taking any measures of himself. There was no real purpose to him spinning the quarter on the table. He was just doing it.

"Connor, I'm talking to you. Why didn't you say anything when I knocked before?"

Still, he didn't respond. He couldn't bring himself to meet Hank's eyes.

"Connor?" Softer, this time. Betraying concern. Compassion. Connor shot Hank a frigid look so brief that the lieutenant didn't even notice. He didn't want to deal with this. He had just resolved himself to leaning back into his original programming. The last half hour had been too much of a whirlwind to start second-guessing himself already.

"You seemed so pleased that I trusted you the other day," Connor said. "At the police station. Tonight, when I opened the door without my skin activated… I was only trying to hand you some paper, Hank. I didn't even think twice about it. I didn't consider the human unpredictability of different situations. I just… trusted you."

"And now you don't feel like you should have," Hank sighed, traipsing closer. He was still sufficiently buzzed, but he seemed mentally present.

"On the contrary, I'm grateful," Connor said. "You've reminded me of who I need to be. What I need to be. It didn't even occur to me to reactivate my skin when I opened the door, Hank – and maybe to you, that's indicative of trust or closeness, but to me, it's dangerous. I always consider the possibilities. I'm designed to analyze everything. And yet, with you, I erroneously stopped doing that because I didn't think I needed to. Now, I realize my program is in place to keep things from being complicated like they are right now, and keep people from getting hurt. From here on out, I will be attempting to revert back to that original program."

Hank's expression didn't change much, but it changed enough to make him look strangely heartbroken. "Okay, uh… can I sit down?"

"It's your table, Lieutenant. You can do whatever you want."

"Listen, Connor, I know I fucked up, but I think you're overreacting just a little here. I know all this is new to you, but you gotta understand – I've never seen you like that before. That was new to me. If I'd seen that on day one, it wouldn't've even surprised me! The only reason it caught me off guard now is because I have come to see you as more. More than a machine, I mean. And, if we're being honest, without your skin, you do look more machine-like. That's all. It was a gut reaction."

"I'm… not sure I understand."

"Connor, I don't even wanna admit this out loud. But I've become so accustomed to seeing the humanity in you, that seeing something other than that – even if it's just exterior – fucked me up a bit. That doesn't speak to your machinery, Connor, which is I think how you're interpreting it. Really, it speaks to just how human you are. I forgot you were an android long enough that seeing the plastic underneath set me off. That's not a testament to your program; it's a testament to you, Connor."

"Okay," Connor murmured. "Okay, I think I see what you're getting it. But you still… you still…" Where were the right words? "It hurt, Lieutenant. It seemed like you were afraid of me. Like you suddenly wanted nothing to do with me. And… that wouldn't be very conducive to our mission."

Hank rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm sorry, Connor, if that's what you need to hear. There's just a lot about this I'm still getting used to, and it generally takes humans longer to adapt to new situations than it does androids. Bear with me."

Not quite convinced, Connor nonetheless took a breath to agree with Hank's assessment because agreeing was easier and would make Hank stop talking about it. Before he could say anything else, Hank reached out and took hold of his hand – the same hand that he had helped fix a few days ago. Slowly, Hank lifted it up, and pressed it against Connor's own temple. Connor could have resisted, but somehow felt that he shouldn't.

"That's how you do it, right?" Hank asked, still holding Connor's hand close to his LED. "Go on, then."

"Hank, I… I can't. I understand now that it's… undesirable. That it isn't human. That…"

"And I'm the one who taught you that," Hank muttered, growing frustrated, "so now let me un-teach you. I'm the one who fucked up this time, Connor. Give me a chance to fix it."

"Chances like that don't come by demanding it."

"I'm not demanding anything," Hank said. "You get up and leave, I'll let you."

Would he, really? Every now and then, he found himself tired of Hank walking all over him. He almost did want to get up and leave, wanted to take control for a change, but then it occurred to him that being compliant to Hank's request could have even more of an effect in that regard. After all, without his skin, he had scared Hank. He had found himself with control of the situation without even meaning to. He could do that again, right now, and…

And Hank knew that too.

SOFTWARE INSTABILITY ^

Maybe Hank wasn't taking control; he was giving it back and just asking Connor to take it.

Slowly, Connor relaxed his hand. He let Hank press the white of his own exposed fingertips against his LED, and then allowed the command to complete.

Even though he was fully clothed, he felt naked. Hank, however well-meaning he usually was behind the grumpy exterior, had taught him less than hour ago that his skinless face was to be met with fear and shame – and that made Connor feel those things himself.

"Jesus, Connor, it ain't that deep."

Hank's voice was soft, concerned, and not nearly as exasperated as it was trying to sound. Connor felt something similar to the shower on his cheek, but only one. Warmth, moisture, tracing a slow line down towards his chin.

"Shit." The lieutenant hastily reached up with a piece of the toilet paper he had retrieved earlier and wiped the wetness off the plastic surface of his jaw. "Hey."

Connor was frozen. It was too much.

"Hey. Connor. Look at me."

He didn't have to execute the command… but he did. And he quickly found Hank's eyes looking into his own, wide with concern and grief and nothing else. If there was anything else, even the slightest touch of fear or anger, Connor would be able to detect it in the subtle creases of Hank's expression; that was why he was afraid to keep looking. But seconds passed and there was nothing but authenticity.

"I'm sorry, Connor. I fucked up."

The [pain?] that he had felt before seemed to loosen, then shift apart, then disappear completely. The uncertainty was still there, but it was… bearable. Quietly, he asked, "Can I activate my skin again?"

"If you want to." Never breaking eye contact, Hank smiled halfway. "But you don't have to. You understand?"

Grateful, Connor nodded.

"'Sides, now that you've opened 'em again, I can see you in your eyes. Hey, there might be other things we gotta get used to someday. We are different, after all, you and me. But I want you to know I'll do what it takes to do that, for whatever that's worth."

"It's worth a lot, Lieutenant," Connor replied. "Thank you."

"You know, I don't want us to have this misunderstanding again, Connor. Why don't you, uh, stay that way for a bit? Seeing more of you without your skin activated… I mean, ya look like a bar of soap, but it might help, if that makes sense. I know you're still you, but it wouldn't hurt to get used to it a bit. I mean, imagine if Chris walked into the station and turned white or Hispanic or…" Hank sighed. "Shitty comparison but you get the idea."

Connor, who had just been about to reactivate said skin out of residual discomfort, smiled and did as Hank asked. "Likewise, it may take me a little time to get used to the fact that this is okay. When you saw me like this in the bathroom, it… rewrote some things. And now my programming needs to rewrite them again for it to feel comfortable. But I'm sure it won't be long."

Flopping back down on the couch, Hank propped his feet on the coffee table and gestured for Connor to sit down too. Connor did, placing himself at the other end so he could lean on the armrest there.

Over the course of the next hour, he watched Hank succumb to a combination of fatigue and increasing drunkenness, and wondered how humans could change their states so easily without even thinking about it. Then, whilst idly tapping his fingers together, Connor noticed the skin there had at some point reactivated, all the way up to his arms… no, up to his shoulders… no, everywhere. For the first time, he noticed the heat. It was subtle, maybe only a degree, but it was there. Hank, frequently intoxicated and thus too hot, kept the house cold to balance it out. Connor's synthetic skin kept him warm.

Still… he hadn't even thought about it, and it had happened right as he was asking himself how people could change their states so seamlessly. Now he knew. It just happened. And his desire to hold onto what he had learned had come back the same way: without him consciously deciding. It simply didn't cross his mind again to go back to his program.

"Hey," he whispered to Hank, leaning over and shaking his shoulder. "I'll get Sumo outside if he needs it. You should turn in for the night. Humans' quality of sleep is improved in an actual bed."

"Fuck off, Connor," Hank muttered comfortably and without any trace of malice, resuming his slumber on the couch.

Connor smiled. All was well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch out for "From Behind the Red Wall" which is a short follow-up to this story about Cyberlife's attempt to force Connor back into his original programming.
> 
> Also, both this story and Red Wall are sort of preludes to the bigger work in progress here, "Eternal Winter" which is a Connor and Hank focused novel-length story about self-sovereignty, overcoming, trust, and love.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I appreciate any kudos and comments :)


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